Ottawa Haunts

Join Margaret Deefholts as she takes a spooky
walk,
looking for
ghosts after dark

in Canada's capital, Ottawa

It is late evening, not quite dusk, but the shadows have
begun to lengthen across Sparks Street in the heart of
Ottawa. A woman wearing a black cloak and hat and
carrying a lantern, beckons a group of us around her. She is
Margo, our guide to Ottawa's haunted houses and
neighborhoods - those spooky places where the living
meet the dead, and the dead refuse to die.

Margo introduces herself and catches my skeptical smile.
She says: "We pride ourselves at having done our
homework on our Haunted Walk of Ottawa Tour. Our
teams have combed through historical archives and old
newspapers reports, and we've personally interviewed
several people who have had first hand experience of
strange encounters at each location. So folks, the stories
you'll hear tonight are all true. But whether you believe
them or not, well, I guess that's up to you!" I wipe the
smile off, and nod earnestly.

Ghost hunting has become a popular spectator sport in
recent years. Canadian ghosts are exhumed in Ottawa,
Montreal, St. John's, Kingston, Toronto and Victoria, all of
which have their haunted walks accompanied by macabre
yarns and audiences shivering in mingled horror and
delight. So, entering into the spirit of things (punning aside) I decide to suspend disbelief for the
next 90 minutes. Never mind that the roar of traffic hurtling around Confederation Square and the
babble of crowded sidewalks would, in my opinion, be enough to scare off the most intrepid of
ghosts.

But does it? Not according to Margo.

To start off our tour, she tells us a story. One that drifts back in time - so that the contemporary
cityscape around us shrivels and evaporates. We are in the midst of a sepia coloured world with
shacks sprawling haphazardly across slushy ground. Construction workers sit around their
campfires smoking pipes, laughing, gambling, brawling. This is Bytown in 1826 where the Rideau
Canal is just beginning to take shape. An epidemic of swamp fever breaks out claiming victims by
the hundreds, and bodies are interred in makeshift graves, many without a headstone. As the
years roll on, Bytown becomes Ottawa, and Ottawa is growing fast - roads, bridges, buildings all
taking shape and form. The skeletons are dug up and dumped in a vacant lot on the fringe of the
town, but as the edges of the city expand further, they are moved again to a third cemetery.
However, fragments remain. Road crews - as recently as 1971 - have found a finger, a jawbone,
or a hollow eyed skull staring up at them from the disturbed earth. Backhoes and crushers may
have crunched these bones into dust, and commercial complexes and offices may now stand
massive and tall along the concrete sidewalks - but occupants of some buildings have been
horribly startled by inexplicable thuds and laughter from empty rooms...

So whereabouts in Ottawa was this old graveyard? What stands on the site today? Well, I'm not
giving anything away - so you'll have to find out for yourself. Suffice to say that the answer
sends a queer little tingle up my spine.

Not so secret is the ghost that walks the corridors of the
Fairmont Chateau Laurier. As we stand in the Square
facing the Chateau, the stone walls and turrets glow in the
light of the setting sun lending it the appearance of an
enchanted castle. Margo shares with us the tale of an
wraith-like figure who once accosted a well-known CBC
personality on a stairwell. On another occasion, a woman
fled in panic, when things began moving around her room
of their own accord. The Chateau staff are understandably
tight-lipped about which floor plays host to its other-world
guest. Rumor has it that this is none other than the ghost
of Charles Melville Hays who commissioned the Chateau
Laurier-the first in his grand scheme of establishing a chain
of opulent hotels across Canada. Hays died aboard the
Titanic when it went down a mere 12 days before the
opening ceremony of the Chateau on April 26, 1912. The
flesh and blood Hays never saw his dream come true, but
the belief is that, shackled by that unfulfilled desire, his
spirit continues to dwell in the hotel which was his last and
greatest achievement.

Margo leads us down Elgin Street, pausing before a pretty
restaurant whose supernatural resident is an asthmatic with
nasty poltergeist tendencies. Further on, we gather in the front porch of a building which used to
be a private school in the early 1900s. "Ask the janitor what happened on a sweltering summer
night when the temperature in the attic suddenly fell below freezing levels," Margo says. "He'll
tell you how fast he high-tailed it out of there after what he saw!" The group shuffles uneasily as
she recounts the details. "And," she adds, jabbing at the glass pane of the front door. "Take a
look down this corridor, folks. Just don't be too sure that the shadows you see are just a trick of
light! One of the after-hours maintenance staff told us how a figure materialized out of those
darkened patches into the full beam of the overhead light, even though he knew that the building
was locked and barred from the inside and totally empty, except for himself." The story has a
bizarre ending and a woman standing next to me shakes her head and mutters, "Wow, that's
weird!"

The Lisgar Collegiate building is our next stop. It is perceptibly darker now. The street lights are
on and the trees along the grassy verge throw quivering leaf-designs on the sidewalk. The little
side road is empty of traffic and the night seems very quiet. Margo points to the dusty windows
of the top floor. "The only stuff up there is storage material," she says, "and area has been closed
off to students and staff for several years." She explains why and adds, "So, as you can imagine
nobody is too eager to go in there except in groups - and that too, only in broad daylight." As we
turn to walk on, I glance again over my shoulder at the windows. And stop and peer again. A
walnut-wrinkled face seems pressed against the glass. The group moves ahead, and I stand
irresolute, wondering whether to go back and maybe try taking a photo. But when I look up once
more, it's just a shadow-dance of branches thrown by the street light against the window pane.
Maybe.

I catch up with the group. Margo holds her lantern aloft, her cloak flowing bat-like in the gloom.
We are now on a pathway flanking the Rideau Canal, its waters shimmering with reflections from
the street lights and adjoining buildings. Margo stops and places her lantern on the ground. "So
far I've told you about other people's experiences," she says.. "But this time I'm going to tell you
about what happened to me. In there." She points to an old stone building, the Bytown Museum,
which stands about two hundred yards away. In the deepening night it looks like a crouching,
sullen animal. The group draws closer.

She goes on: "We were preparing for a
special event that was to take place in the
Museum the following morning, but we
had to wait until staff and tourists had left
the building. Three of us, my colleague -
I'll just call her Betty, but that's not her
real name, my boss - let's call him, John -
and myself, got here 10 o'clock that
night." Margo pauses for a moment
before continuing. "We all knew that the
Museum was supposed to be haunted, but
that was the last thing on our minds when
we unlocked the door. There was a lot to
be done, and even with the three of us
going full tilt, it was almost 11.30 by the
time we were finished. We then went
through the place-upstairs and downstairs-checking to ensure that all the windows were properly
locked and bolting the doors to the rooms behind us. Betty and I stood just inside that side
entrance door you see there, while John went over to the stairwell to set the security system. And
that's when it happened..."

What followed brings me out in goose-bumps. All the more because as Margo talks, she is plainly
edgy. Her eyes dart uneasily at the building as if she's still in the grip of that earlier night, when
she and Betty bolted terrified out of the door. Worst of all,
John's frantic 'Oh Jesus! Girls...don't leave me alone in
here!' meant that, no matter what, they knew they'd have to
go back inside again.

Margo picks up her lantern, and makes her way towards
Confederation Square, her audience now clustering around
her and peppering her with questions. I leave them to it,
adjust my camera to a low light setting and approach the
Museum. By the time I finish taking shots from several
angles, the group has dwindled into the distance. A toenail
moon hangs over the city, and a cool breeze springs up,
bringing with it the murmur of traffic. As I turn to leave, I
feel a soft touch brushing against my shoulder. My startled
yelp turns to sheepish relief - its just a leaf spiraling down -
but I nonetheless hurry to catch up with the others.

It's time to leave the un-dead who writhe and groan in the
night, and along with four others in the group, I seek the
company of another kind of spirit. It comes out of a rum
bottle - and is comfortingly dark, smooth and heady. We
lounge around in the convivial atmosphere of D'arcy
McGee's Irish Pub and exchange ghost yarns. Does the
spectre of the Pub's namesake, the brutally murdered McGee, lurk in the shadowy corners
watching and listening? Well...perhaps.

Article by Margaret Deefholts

IF YOU GO:

Haunted Walks of Canada offer several walking tours of Ottawa from May till October (some
only run from June to Labor Day). Apart from The Original Haunted Walk, and The Essential
Haunted Walk, they also conduct a Ghosts and Gallows tour, offer titillating glimpses into
Naughty Ottawa and welcome visitors to their Naughty Ottawa Pub Walk. They offer a special
tour at Halloween.

Tours start at the kiosk located on the corner of Sparks Street and Elgin Street. For updated
ticket information, group rates, detailed schedules, timings and bookings phone them at (613)
232-0344, or fax them at (613) 562-4988

Their website may be accessed at http://www.hauntedwalk.com/ottawatour.htm